Plugging in molecular wires
Friday, February 13, 2009 - 04:22
in Physics & Chemistry
Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) are masters of everything to do with solar energy because they are able to almost completely transform captured sunlight into chemical energy. This is in part because the electrons set free by the photons are transported out of the 'light receptor' 1:1 to be used as the driving force for chemical reactions. Japanese researchers have now developed a new process to capture light energy with nearly equal efficiency. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, they 'plug' a molecular 'wire' directly into a biological photosynthetic system to efficiently conduct the free electrons to a gold electrode...
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